I never understood this also. I remember the first day I played halo 2, I looked down and there were my legs in all their glory.

are u sure?
anyways, i dont get it, whats so special about HALO that it attracts allot of people? when i played the first halo i really thought.... is this it????
its just a FPS with a sci theme, imo RESISTANCE owns HALO when it comes to orginality it has a WW2 theme mixed with sci fi theme, thats more original than HALO,

i play lots of Halo 2 because were i live it has very competitive community especially at place like CyberJocks were tournaments happen pretty often for nice chunks of change. Is TC:E better hell no y because you can't compare the games it's like comparing 2 things that are not similar (can't think of an analogy right now) as for legs that was awesome same in FEAR. Halo may not be as original games but it has solid game play that many games can't offer

1. You really don't notice them unless you're staring at the ground, which you really don't do.
2. It eats up CPU power for something that isn't really noticed.
3. It takes too much time to model/animate/bugfix that could be used on other stuff.

I actually played whatever halo game that has the legs in (I think halo 2 for the xbox has them) and because I was a newbie, I saw the ground when I was trying to aim, went "hmm, that's neat" then promptly brought my aim back up.

It's in ArmA, but again, I never really looked. My mouse went nuts (dust on the optic part), my view went down, I ent "hmm, that's neat" looked up, then went in a truck.

Well for Halo, I dont know. I hate the gameplay but I like the story and plot. If you ask me, Halo MP is cheap, just cheap.

Seeing the legs in part of the engine. The camera for Quake3 based games doesnt necessarily see the third person model as the first person visible limbs. (Hence the first person gun position is different from the actual model itself.)

In game design, as a matter of fact any kind of software or material of any kind that involves 3d graphics, realism of not, it is never a good idea to add something that is useless. So what if we cant see our legs in the game, what is the gameplay advantage in seeing your legs anyway? Does it actually affect gameplay? No it doesnt. So why spend time allowing the player to view thier legs if that same amount of time could be used to fix the ladder issue or make new and better player models?

Put it simply, seeing the legs isnt necessary and is just a waste of time. In FEAR you can view your legs, only because it is a fluke in the engine - the camera is actually mounted on the head which in Jupiter Engine, uses skeletal systems allowing it to actually look up and down without bending the body. This lets you see the legs, and not to mention that Jupiter Engine usus the same thirdperson model for the first person viewpoint. Seeing the legs isnt a feature, its an unintentional engine effect that only so happens to have happened because of the way the models are used and the way the camera is placed and controlled.

it might not be important for you, but it might be important for someone else,

small little details r very important for me, and not a waist of time,
if the director of Lord of the Rings didnt care about the little details, the visuals would look like crap,

maybe small little details wont affect the gameplay, but it affects the visuals,
and visuals are important, if visuals arent important, than we would still be in the 2D phases,

people that dont care about the little things r usually extremely simple minded and will never get satisfied if there is just a tiny little improvement on the visuals, they usually just want the bigger things,

but remember, small little tiny changes could actually turn out to be a very big change,

A movie is different. Details rendered for a movie you only render once. In games, having something uneeded lying around only slows down the game for most people. If you want to look at legs just look down or get FEAR and play it.

Actually, sorry to burst your bubble but most of the art in Lord of the Rings are 2d matte paintings - this is the only reason they were able to get so much detail in. However in games these details have to be in 3d.

The little things? Adding a whole new point of view and recreating the Quake3 engine camera system just to see your legs isnt 'little' and how many times do I have to say tha tthe first person model isnt the same as the thirdperson visible model. Not to mention the camera isnt even on the head.

It is more important for a game under development to finish all the general features first that generally affect the gameplay. Effects and eye candy come after.

Yes 2d or 3d, but movies arent realtime rendering. Everything works differently in real time. Sure finishing touches but is the game finished to be adding finishing touches? Does a carpenter varnish the wood before it is made into a chair? I dont think so. Do I put icing on dough before baking it into a cake? I think not.